TITLE TALK: Auburn’s Wes Byrum celebrates his game-winning kick in Monday’s 22-19 win over Oregon in the BCS championship game in Glendale, Ariz., a contest burdened with ESPN announcers (inset, from left) Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit. Photo: UPI

Before the BCS championship Monday, the production meeting, starting with ESPN’s producer addressing Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit, had to have gone down something like this:

“Brent, Kirk, er, I mean, Herbie, not for a second do we not appreciate that you two, especially you, Brent, did everything you could to wreck the Rose Bowl telecast. Again. But tonight’s the last game of the college season. There’s nothing to save for tomorrow, know what I mean?

“If you two have any nonsense left, anything at all, I beg you to reach deep and speak it tonight! I’m counting on you, ESPN is counting on you, the nation is counting on you. Alright, hands in, ‘Boo-ya!’ on three!”

How else can you explain such a bad big-game telecast? Another one?

After the second play of the game, Oregon QB Darron Thomas pitching out during an option, Herbstreit struck first:

“If he’d just lowered his shoulder and gotten up field, it would’ve been the first first down of the game for Oregon.”

He said that after the second play of the game. It was much like that the entire way, complete hear-through/see-through nonsense posed as expertise with overly stylized goop thrown in to ensure nausea.

With 35 seconds left in the first half, Oregon punted from Auburn’s 41 — it figured to be a short punt that Auburn would just let bounce into the end zone or allow Oregon to down it deep, then kill the clock. The latter occurred. Yet Musburger cooed, “Beautiful coverage down there.”

That’s right, beautiful coverage of an intentionally short Oregon punt, followed by a short Oregon run to a ball that Auburn didn’t want to go near.

At halftime a shot from a blimp moved Musburger, the shill’s shill, to this: “You look down on the stadium, a buzz, no one leaving.”

No one leaving? At halftime of the national championship game, the score 16-11? “Come on Agnes, we’re outta here. This baby’s over.”

But Musburger has lost the fastball he never had. Now he’s got this new thing where he says, “You’ll be back,” instead of “We’ll be back” as ABC/ESPN goes to commercials. Imagine spending time — even three seconds — to consider such a thing let alone reach such a decision.

As for Herbstreit, er, Herbie, he so often referenced “space” — as in “run to space,” “out in space,” “he was there with space” — that he should’ve called the game with Alice Kramden … on the moon!

“Out in space?” For years, before game-ending hits became “walk-offs,” fumbles became “putting it on the carpet” and first-downs became “moving the chains” — before ESPN — being “out in space” meant you were open, as in, “Throw it over here. I’m open!”

Hey, it took ESPN only 20 years to realize that people weren’t kidding about Joe Theismann and Joe Morgan. But whattaya gonna do, not watch the games on ESPN? As Musburger now says, “You’ll be back.”

Colleges need scholarship education

Imagine if American colleges spent as much time and money recruiting scholars — or, better yet, academically eager poor kids who are worth a shot — as they do recruiting academically deficient basketball and football players.

Would America be better or worse for that?

Florida State this week received a commitment from 6-foot-6 star receiver Kelvin Benjamin, who played in just eight of 10 games this past season because Florida’s high school age eligibility maximum, 19 years and nine months, expired. Benjamin, according to scouts, had academic issues but, at 20, is soon expected to graduate.

Benjamin was recruited by Miami, Florida and FSU.

* With BCS rights now belonging to ESPN, ya gotta love the word games it played in view of the Cam Newton payola and academic fraud scandals. We heard about Newton performing well despite the “controversy surrounding him,” and we heard about “the saga” he has lived and “the journey” he has endured — as if he were the victim of an accident.

* From reader Rich Podolsky: “The BCS geniuses did it again. They brought in a new field for the big game so everyone could slip and fall. Who came up with that bright idea?” Answer: Those who bet the under.

Patriots prove Jackson wrong

Who made the worst knee-jerk call in the history of modern sportscasting? Funny you should ask. One could logically guess Mike Francesa, given that he has made so many, but the title belongs to a more likable fellow, ESPN NFL studio analyst Tom Jackson.

After the Patriots opened the 2003 season with a 31-0 loss to the Bills, Jackson firmly, knowingly declared that “Bill Belichick has lost this team.”

The Patriots went 14-1 the rest of the way, won the Super Bowl, went 14-2 the next season, and, well, since Jackson’s claim, Belichick’s Patriots are 113-29.

* ESPN Radio and TV, the last two days, chatted up actors Vince Vaughn and Ron Howard, the latter director of Vaughn’s new movie. Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell another ESPN sell. Yep, Spyglass Entertainment, the movie’s producer, has a distribution deal with Disney, ESPN’s owner.

* Somewhere in TV land, a pregame show producer is considering a piece about how Antonio Cromartie is really a good guy; he’s just misunderstood. Despite only evidence to the contrary, all Cromartie has to do is say he’s a misunderstood good guy, and presto, it’s a TV feature. But save it, OK? Put it in the pile with all those “Randy Moss has matured” features.

* Mike Fran-say-so continues to speak of Colts coach Jim Caldwell as “Cardwell.” Hey, if Francesa insists that it’s Cardwell, then Cardwell it must be! It’s time Caldwell got it right.

* So Michael Vick laid an egg in Sunday’s playoff game. You know what that means to our sports media? It means Vick has veered off the path to redemption; his character is at issue again.